February 2010

Jordan Alarick brought out his head sharply from his wardrobe where he had been arranging the clothes he intended to take with him. He had not started packing yet but he wanted to get everything ready and in its place so he could do his packing in one fell swoop. It had become a force of habit, one couldn’t expect anything less from a man who had made his way steadily up to the highest rank in the county police department at such a young age.

He knew that it was also a force of habit that made him jerk when he heard the shuffling sound in the hallway. He rubbed the part of his head that he had rammed against the upper part of his wardrobe as he straightened sharply. Jordan smiled as he heard hushed whispers from the hallway and he knew who could be the source of that. Well, sources, if one wanted to be particular.

He placed his hand against his waist as he called out “I know you are there”

Total silence.

He changed his tone to a menacing one as he said “If you don’t show yourself and surrender, I will start shooting. One…”

“Pfft, you will never shoot us” came a young male voice from behind the voice.

Jordan’s smile widened as he heard a female groan before she said in a chiding tone as he heard a smacking sound “Oh, kill me” he could imagine his cousin smacking her forehead as she rolled her eyes at her twin as he heard “Good job Hen, now he knows that we are the one, stupid”

“He already knows that we are the one!” Her brother retorted “And I am not stupid, you are!”

“Who is stupid?” he heard feets shuffling and he could picture perfectly what was going on. Now she was trying to get her hands on him and he was running while taunting her.

“Fu-kay-na! Fuka! Fuka! Fuka!” her brother replied.

“I swear let me…”

Jordan opened the door and the scenario he saw made him burst out in laughter, Fukayna was about to remove one of her shoes and she stood with her leg suspended in the air as she looked at him while Henley had his hand in his air as he poked his tongue out at his sister with his feet ready to take flight the moment she removed her shoe.

“At the risk of you two killing yourself at my door, do come right in” Jordan announced breezily.

“Hello, Jordan,” Fukayna said as she abandoned the task of killing her brother for the moment and smiled at him.

“He is the Sheriff now, you should call him sheriff. Who is the stupid one now?” Henley rolled his eyes at his sister.

Jordan smiled as he saw that the lad had finally perfected it. His sister had tormented him so much with her eye-rolling that he had vowed to learn how to do it. Jordan had caught him practising it in the mirror the other day and he had made him promise to keep it a secret.

“I would not hear the end of it from that girl” he had groaned. That girl being his sister.

Jordan had promised him and then he joined him to practise as well as he told him that you can never have too much skill as a Sheriff, the skill might come in handy when he wanted to deal with recalcitrant deputies. The two of them had ended up doubling in laughter when Jordan had compared them to a pair of owls who had something stuck in their eyes and was trying to get it out. Henley had requested for a rank in the police department if the eye-rolling worked on the deputies as that would mean he had contributed to the force. Jordan never did learn his eye-rolling but he could see now that the kid had been hard at work.

His sister did not appreciate it though as she narrowed her eyes at him “He is no longer the Sheriff, idiot. He resigned! I wouldn’t expect you to remember a thing about that though, you dunce”

Henley stuck out his tongue again “You are the dunce”

“Who are you calling…” she reached for the shoe again.

Jordan sighed theatrically “Kids, kids. As our genius here said, I have already resigned and I am not willing to mop up anybody’s blood. If you want to kill him, Fuka, do it elsewhere. Bye…”

“No wait wait” Fukayna, who was closer to the door quickly raised her hand to it to stop him as Jordan made as if to close the door “I can kill him later, let us come in”

“As if” Jordan heard her brother mutter as he let go of the door and entered.

The two of the forgot their food for a while as they stood side by side with their eyes on every other place but him. He knew they have something to say and if they were being this reluctant to say it out, they probably thought he would refuse and if they could have thought of that; it is probably something that he would refuse as they almost always get their way around him.

“Now I am growing fanciful,” he thought as he looked at them sideways and saw Fukayna twirl the belt of her dress as she went to his collections. He couldn’t remember when he started but he had never outgrown his collection of comic books. He had the latest and the oldest of his favourite series “Rajun” rajun had been popular back at Baleria and he had thought he would not be able to get them here in Rova but he had been wrong. Rajun was universal. Fukayna had shown interest in them and he intended to leave these for her and send her any latest series from time to time.

Where he was going, he doubted if he would have the time for comics anyway. Maybe it was time to outgrow some things, he had bigger things to deal with.

He sighed again and reminded himself that he had promised to take his mind off any morbid thoughts for the remnant of the days he had to use with the family that he had come to love and cherish in the past twelve years.

He turned his mind back to the kids behind him.

Eleven years old Fukayna and Henley had arrived in the world shortly after he came to stay with their parents.

Angry with his dad for sending him to where he termed the middle of nowhere back then, proving difficult with his uncle just so he could send him back and pretending that his eighth year's old cousin Chione was beneath his notice. He was after all too cool to allow a girl to hang around him.

They had arrived filling the not-so-bustling household with their energy.

His aunt had called him to hold them when he was leaning against the door jamb posing like he didn’t give a care in the world.

He moved closer to them and they blinked those impossibly clear eyes at him, then as if by agreement, they had both held on to his little fingers and stole his heart.

He had never remained the same.

“Take us with you” the two of them shouted in unison, jolting him out of his thought.

Well, he had not been expecting that.